Belinda Haas

Somerset Maugham was a master teller of stories about superficial people who are revealed and drastically changed by circumstance or luck. His novella Up at the Villa is a tale of death, seduction, blackmail and theft among British and Americans in Florence in the turbulent days just before World War II. The film, despite an outstanding cast including Kristin Scott Thomas, Anne Bancroft, Sean Penn and Derek Jacobi, is strangely mannered and rather flat, more like a waltz than the tango Maugham might have had in mind. (imdb)

Two men face the consequences of gambling after playing with men beyond their league. (imdb)

The movie is a study of an aristocratic family in the Victorian England. William Adamson, a young scientist, is introduced into the aristocratic family Alabaster by reverend Alabaster who is also fascinated by insects. William marries the older daughter of the family and studies the amounts of insects in the garden of the villa. His - for the aristocrats - strange behaviours reveal at the same time their own failures and passions. (imdb)

Husband and wife Cyril (Charles Dance) and Fiona (Sheryl Lee) explore new ground and new relationships when they take a vacation in the tropics. While on holiday, the pair meets another couple, Hugh (Colin Lane) and Catherine (Laila Robins), and their three children. Relationships become intertwined when Cyril and Fiona lose their inhibitions and seek sexual intimacy with Hugh and Catherine in this erotic drama.